RaveBooklist... one of the best (and, God knows, longest) American novels of the decade. Many readers will blanche at the length (and more than 100 pages of end notes), but the engrossing, subplot-heavy narrative is absolutely engrossing ... The many parallel narratives are endlessly clever and complicated, and the book’s satiric attack on American culture and values is often hilarious, but what finally makes this such an extraordinary novel is Wallace’s ability to populate this surreal world with real, recognizable, and vivid characters.
Markus Zusak
RaveThe New York Times Book ReviewThe Australian writer Markus Zusak's brilliant and hugely ambitious new young-adult novel is startling in many ways...a long, achingly sad, intricately structured book about Nazi Germany narrated by Death itself ... this book isn't about Death; it's about death, and so much else ... Liesel is a very well-drawn character (and immensely likable), but many young readers will find the going slow until Max Vandenburg, a 24-year-old Jewish boxer, shows up at the family doorstep ... In The Book Thief, where battling to survive is sometimes an act of weakness, we see fighting in all its complexity ...it's the kind of book that can be life-changing, because without ever denying the essential amorality and randomness of the natural order, The Book Thief offers us a believable, hard-won hope.
